You will often hear NFL fans and draftniks say they hope their team waits until the second or third round to draft a quarterback because taking one in the first round is just too risky. There is no denying that selecting a quarterback early in the draft is a dangerous proposition and with the way contracts for top ten picks have been spiraling out of control the financial ramifications just make it all that more daunting. However, with great risk also comes great reward. The first round waters are treacherous when it comes to signal callers but history has shown that waiting to address the game's most crucial position probably isn’t such a good idea either.

Below you will find a list of every quarterback taken in either the second or third round of the NFL Draft for fifteen years, from 1992-2006. I chose not to include the fifteen signal callers taken in that same range the past three years because it is still too early to make a judgment about many of their careers one way or another.

This has been my opinion all along. Generally, you get your franchise QBs in the first round. QB is priority #1 in the NFL. Sure, there is a lighting in a bottle (see Brady) situation every now and then, but those players are few and far between.

I don't see the point of slow-playing it if you have the ability to get a franchise QB in the first round -- now if they aren't available, then draft for OL or another need -- but if they are there, you may not get a second opportunity to pick one up.

There is really a lot of positions you could say that for, mostly ones that people take a lot of in the first round. Qb, OT, CB, DE, DT, maybe OLB. If the top 3-6 are off the board by the second round, the odds of getting a good one have diminished.

The thing with qb is that

a) you only need one on the field at any given time
and
b) if you don't win, its your fault

If you combine that with the fact that qb evaluation isn't always easy, then you get all the qb failures and risk. JC is considered a failure by most, and he was the 15th best qb in the league last year. Nobody would say the 40th or even 50th ranked OT is a failure. So yea, it is risky to pay a qb that much money.

JC is considered a failure by most, and he was the 15th best qb in the league last year. Nobody would say the 40th or even 50th ranked OT is a failure. So yea, it is risky to pay a qb that much money.

On it's face, 15th (in qb rating) doesn't sound that bad, but when you take a closer look at it it's pretty miserable. First, only 3 qb's that started a full season had worse qb ratings that JC. So, for the most part, the guys with worse qb ratings that JC were either out injured at times or not good enough to play full-time. Secondly, some of the players below JC, while having worse qb ratings, were first or second year players (Ryan, Henne, Sanchez, Stafford) that have showed a lot of promise but are still young. For example, Matt Ryan. His qb rating was worse, but is there anyone that would honestly say that they want JC on their team more than a guy like Ryan? So you're essentially comparing a 5th year player to rookies or second year guys. If you break it down, you can probably find 18-20 qb's are probably more valuable than JC.

JC is considered a failure by most, and he was the 15th best qb in the league last year. Nobody would say the 40th or even 50th ranked OT is a failure. So yea, it is risky to pay a qb that much money.

On it's face, 15th (in qb rating) doesn't sound that bad, but when you take a closer look at it it's pretty miserable. First, only 3 qb's that started a full season had worse qb ratings that JC. So, for the most part, the guys with worse qb ratings that JC were either out injured at times or not good enough to play full-time. Secondly, some of the players below JC, while having worse qb ratings, were first or second year players (Ryan, Henne, Sanchez, Stafford) that have showed a lot of promise but are still young. For example, Matt Ryan. His qb rating was worse, but is there anyone that would honestly say that they want JC on their team more than a guy like Ryan? So you're essentially comparing a 5th year player to rookies or second year guys. If you break it down, you can probably find 18-20 qb's are probably more valuable than JC.

Jason is finished, I agree on that point. But, I think articles that use pure statistics on the draft are pretty useless. First, they usually ignore the relative crapshoot that drafting a QB in the first round is. Second they ignore other factors that impact the QB's ability to succeed. I.e. how god awful their team was, etc.

I'm not sold on Bradford since he has had the same injury twice. Shoulders are nothing to play with - literally - for a QB (see Chad Pennington). Nonetheless, would Bradford excite the fans?? Yes. But so did Heath Shuler. Remember he was supposed to be the next Steve Young.

If Bradford goes at 4, we better grab Roger Saffold in the 2nd and somehow acquire a starting caliber LT...or else Jason will continue to get killed.....the fans will call for Bradford, and if he gets in he better not fall on his shoulder.

JC is considered a failure by most, and he was the 15th best qb in the league last year. Nobody would say the 40th or even 50th ranked OT is a failure. So yea, it is risky to pay a qb that much money.

On it's face, 15th (in qb rating) doesn't sound that bad, but when you take a closer look at it it's pretty miserable. First, only 3 qb's that started a full season had worse qb ratings that JC. So, for the most part, the guys with worse qb ratings that JC were either out injured at times or not good enough to play full-time. Secondly, some of the players below JC, while having worse qb ratings, were first or second year players (Ryan, Henne, Sanchez, Stafford) that have showed a lot of promise but are still young. For example, Matt Ryan. His qb rating was worse, but is there anyone that would honestly say that they want JC on their team more than a guy like Ryan? So you're essentially comparing a 5th year player to rookies or second year guys. If you break it down, you can probably find 18-20 qb's are probably more valuable than JC.

It wasn't really my point to turn this into a JC discussion, my point is that very few qb's are considered successful compared to other positions, both because qb's take all the blame and also because you only need one qb while you need two or more of most other positions. That adds to the risk of taking a qb. If only like 10 are considered to be successful, than its a REAL risk to give that much money away.

NO - I do not want a QB from the lower rounds - let's use all those picks on other players, NOT QBs

the only QB that I hope we draft is Bradford - other than that I hope these guys add all the offensive linemen they can and maybe think about a couple of other positions of need as well

This franchise is going to take a while to get back in shape and we do not have as many picks as we need - it would have been helpful to have Bradford but now we just rebuild this franchise and, as soon as we can, we find another great QB and we bring him in

the QBs here now are not the problem or the solution but they'll do until we want to become a consistently competitive franchise again - that's going to take a couple of years anyway you look at it

P A T I E N C E - Scot & Jay's goal here is to make this franchise better - it will take time they understand the need to change to primarily building through the draft - plus have some luck go their way

I'm not sold on Bradford since he has had the same injury twice. Shoulders are nothing to play with - literally - for a QB (see Chad Pennington). Nonetheless, would Bradford excite the fans?? Yes. But so did Heath Shuler. Remember he was supposed to be the next Steve Young.

He didn't really injure his shoulder twice. He tried to play through the pain without getting surgery and couldn't do it. Yes, shoulders are a concern, but it's not like he injured his labrum or rotator cuff. Those are the injuries that you need to look out for. And even then, look at how Drew Brees has recovered from his shoulder injury.

I do agree with you about needing to upgrade the oline; however, if Bradford is there I take him without hesitation. Use the second rounder on an offensive lineman, sit Bradford for the year, and if still necessary, use a first rounder on an offensive lineman next year. We obviously need both a qb and a left tackle, so I don't think that it really matters which order we get them in (assuming Bradford sits the year).

The other problem that hasn't been addressed yet in all the Bradofrd/Okung threads is that next year's qb class isn't going to be much deeper than this years. Next years it's Locker and Mallett (both likely going top 5 or even top 3) and then a huge drop off to guys like Christian Ponder. So if Bradford falls to us I think that we really have no choice but to draft him, unless we plan on trading into the top 3 or 5 next year.

... but Tony Pike will be available in later rounds and we can use the early picks to get Okung and possibly a RB? I don't know about the second pick because I figure Bradford and Clausen would be gone by our second pick and I'm not sure if they're more OL in the draft worth getting (you guys can school me on that one though).

the good news is that there are a number of offensive linemen available in this draft - the bad news is that we do not have many picks

OL OL OL OL OL - UNLESS by some miracle Bradford is there or we trade up to get him

P A T I E N C E - Scot & Jay's goal here is to make this franchise better - it will take time they understand the need to change to primarily building through the draft - plus have some luck go their way

First round QBs don't bust near as much as people say they do. It is just a heck of a lot easier to remember them because they are QBs.
DTs actually bust more than QBs in the first round, but somehow taking a DT is now the "safe pick" according to many.

brad7686 wrote:If you combine that with the fact that qb evaluation isn't always easy, then you get all the qb failures and risk. JC is considered a failure by most, and he was the 15th best qb in the league last year. Nobody would say the 40th or even 50th ranked OT is a failure. So yea, it is risky to pay a qb that much money.

I agree that QB evaluation is the most difficult -- mainly because of the intangibles necessary to be successful at the position. It's a 50/50 relationship between physical and mental ability.

But for JC, 15th is only if you are blindly looking at the stats. Would you rather have JC over Ryan, Cutler, Palmer, Sanchez, or even Henne? Probably not. And as someone already stated, if you only account for the normal starters, he was close to bottom 5 in alot of categories.

The other stat I found interesting is that for all teams who had QBs that threw more than 500 passes during the season, their records were 11-3 (including skins). The other two CHI and JAGs were 7-9. The skins were the only team with a 500+ attempt QB that wasn't near or above (mostly well above) the .500 mark.